


Mirror Image

by SegaBarrett



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 06:52:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7966771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa finds her sister isn't quite what she remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror Image

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own Game of Thrones, and I make no money from this.

Sansa was worried that one of these times, Arya was going to catch her looking at her.

Worst of all, Sansa wasn’t even sure who she was looking at. Sure, the obvious signs were there – her little sister had the same nose, for one; that was the first thing Sansa focused on when Arya had walked back into her life. 

She had the same hair, and walked with the same swagger, as if she didn’t care who was in her way, she would simply push them out of it. She remembered that from when they were children, didn’t she? The way that it had always annoyed her. Sansa had always fancied herself a lady. It made her laugh, now, the way things had turned out. The way she’d married two men she didn’t love – but only one she hated – the way that life had already turned out to be a mockery of the way she had always dreamed it would be.

There had been so many times that she hadn’t thought about Arya because she couldn’t bear it. The thought of Joffrey putting her sister’s head up on a spike, or Ramsay somehow dragging her in and making her another of his playthings. Making her another Theon, maybe. Or just that she would never know – that Arya was lost in the midst somewhere and that Sansa would live the rest of her days wanting to at least know.

Well, now she knew. There she was, little Arya, not so little anymore. How old must she be, now? Thirteen? Fourteen?

Sansa had lost track of how old she herself was, even. She had stopped counting a very long time ago.

She was worried that Arya would catch her looking at her, and sometimes too she would catch Arya looking at her.

As if she were sizing her up. Like a conquest. Or like something she could hunt for dinner.

***

Sansa pulled her hairbrush down and through her hair, putting her fingers through it, wondering if it would ever feel the way it had felt before. Back when she was a child, back when she was going to be a princess and live in a castle and never want for anything.

Back when she was going to marry a handsome prince and have beautiful children who she would love forever.

She couldn’t remember what she had hoped for Arya in those dreams. Maybe she had pictured her as a princess, too, but that wasn’t the Arya she had known then, and it certainly wasn’t the Arya she knew now.

Maybe it wasn’t fair. They had all changed, after all. Maybe this was just the… the suddenness of it all, of being back with her again and not being ready to see it.

The door swung open before Sansa even realized someone had knocked on it – or maybe they hadn’t.

“Arya!”

The girl – was she even a “girl” anymore? – had become so quick in her time away. Had she really learned all of that while Sansa was learning how to be a proper lady? 

“Hello, Sansa.”

Sansa tried to repress a shiver. She couldn’t even pinpoint what it was, exactly, that was making her feel so on edge. 

Arya had always been so serious, even as a child – Sansa couldn’t remember her ever smiling or being frivolous or even just taking joy in anything. But now… now there seemed to be a void in her, somewhere.

One that threatened to suck in anything that was close.

Sansa would not say it, however – how could she? There was something missing from her, too. And from Jon. 

He had been brought back from the dead, after all – he had lost it all. 

Sansa wondered if all of him had even come back. Maybe there had been some tiny change she hadn’t noticed, something lying in wait she hadn’t picked up on.

“How have you been feeling, Arya?” Sansa managed to say. “It’s… great to have you back. I never could have imagined it.”

“And I thought I would only see you up on a stage,” Arya mused. Sansa turned to give her a confused look.

“A stage?” 

But Arya just went right on staring ahead – at the mirror, maybe? Sansa could barely even tell these days.

She did that a lot, said something and had a private, dark chuckle to herself but refused to explain the reference to anyone else. 

“Arya… Maybe we should talk,” Sansa ventured, hands up as if she was confronting an angry dog.

She had seen enough of them recently, and Arya had the same look in her eye. She looked as if she could strike any minute, could grip Sansa’s arm and pull her into the darkness. 

“Talk about what?” Arya asked, her hands drifting down to her hips. 

“Everything that’s… happened since we’ve been apart.”

“You mean since you killed Joffrey?”

Arya’s voice didn’t change tone. It was so matter-of-fact.

“I didn’t,” Sansa blurted, quickly. 

Little Arya.

“That’s not what they say. They call you the evil harlot, Sansa Stark. The wicked one. They said that you schemed with your lover, the Dwarf, to murder him.” Arya laughed. “Not that I blame you. If anybody deserved to die, then Joffrey did.”

For Arya to think that she had killed.

And, well, she had – she had, but she wouldn’t think of that. It was something that had needed to be done, letting the dogs run, ending it as it had begun, in a rush, in a panic. And Ramsay was different. Joffrey, even though he was evil, he had been an evil fourteen-year-old boy.

Sansa didn’t know that she could have done it, if she’d had to.

“Well, I’m not. And I didn’t choose to marry Tyrion. It just… I had to. I did what I had to do, Arya. He definitely wasn’t my ‘lover’.”

“Was Ramsay Bolton, then?”

“Definitely not.” Sansa’s lip curled up in a wry smile. “I haven’t had a ‘lover’. I mean, not the way that I always thought it would have been.” She opened her eyes slightly and looked at her younger sister. “Arya… Have you?”

She rolled back her head and laughed so loud that Sansa flinched.

“Yes, Sansa. I’ve been spending all my time entertaining the best lovers of the court.” She snorted. “I was a boy, for a while. Called Arry.”

Sansa scraped at her nose, not wanting to break the spell; Arya was finally talking to her, telling her something from her past. 

But what did it mean? What had happened when they had been separated? What path had brought Sansa here and Arya to… to whoever she was right now?

“And now?” Sansa spoke up quietly when Arya didn’t tell her anything else. 

“And now… I can’t really talk with you about it, Sansa. You wouldn’t understand.” 

Sansa breathed out.

“You can talk to me. You can tell me anything – I’m your sister. Please, just…” 

She paused. It wasn’t as if she had been free and open about the last few years, either. But that was for Arya’s own good – what would she think if Sansa told her of the things Ramsay had done, or the flight from King’s Landing after Joffrey had choked to death from poison? Of nearly being thrown through a hole in the sky?

“I’m a faceless man.”

Sansa stared at her.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m an assassin. I’ve killed people. I was going to be a faceless man, I guess I should say. If I was, you wouldn’t even know I was here. No one would. But I threw it all away.”

Sansa kept staring. Arya wasn’t making any sense. 

Or maybe she was making perfect sense. Her little sister, an assassin? The girl hadn’t even begun to bleed yet the last time she had seen her.

Not that she would have known. She had stopped talking to Arya for days back then, to punish her. Acting as if she could stop her from being her sister or change something just to prove a point. 

She’d felt like a princess then, like nothing could ever hit her. It was hard to be angry with that Sansa, however – she had only been a child. Yet, Arya had been even younger and now… now this?

What was this, exactly? Who was this person who had her sister’s face but was talking about killing people as if it was no different than flicking away a flea?

“I got too close to someone. That was my mistake. I saved them, and then I got them killed.”

“What are you talking about? Arya, you need to… Sit down, maybe, and start at the beginning. It’s been so long – I don’t really understand.” Or maybe I don’t want to, Sansa admitted in the darkness of her own mind, in a cavern away from the rest of her thoughts. 

“Sit down here? In your nice little room, where you play pretend like we’re back home again?” Arya laughed. “I’m not staying here long. You don’t have to worry about me interfering in your little fantasy world. I’ll be out there protecting you from what comes to get you at night.” Quick as a snake, she leapt out and poked at Sansa’s dress.

Sansa jumped.

“Arya, quit it.” She wouldn’t throw it back in her face, wouldn’t tell her everything she had seen (and done) in the past years.

But she also wouldn’t beg her to stay, even though she wanted to.

“Should’ve known.” 

Arya’s eyes lost the hard glint for just a moment, and Sansa realized that maybe underneath it all, she was still her little sister. Hadn’t she been tiny once, vulnerable, before she’d gotten insufferable and insisted on being everything that Sansa wasn’t?

On twisting everything, on being so contrary and different that Sansa had wondered how they were sisters at all.

“You should stay,” Sansa whispered, finally. “I want you to stay.”

She hadn’t allowed herself to think about Arya in so long, hadn’t allowed herself to picture how her little sister might have changed. But here she was, home again.

She wrapped her arms around her and took a shuddering breath, trying not to cry.

“You should stay here with me.”


End file.
